The Best Chicken Curry You’ll Ever Make (Restaurant-Quality)

Chicken Curry is probably the most generic name

for the kind of chicken that we eat back in India.

The chicken curry that I'm making is predominantly

found in the north.

The best part about this dish is

that it's a one part wonder.

You can literally see the dish coming

through in the same skillet.

[upbeat music]

The first part of this very simple chicken curry

is making a marinade for your chicken.

Could you just throw in chicken into the gravy,

into the masala that you're building?

Yes. Is that a lackluster way of making a chicken curry?

Yes. Do you wanna build more flavor?

Absolutely and I feel like the yogurt marination

does a great trick for that.

Just gonna use my hands.

Full fat Greek yogurt, 5%,

so that makes the sauce really creamy.

You can definitely use Indian style tahi.

That's what we use back home. My Kashmiri red chili.

This is gonna get the color and the heat.

Turmeric powder, ginger garlic paste,

ginger and garlic are two ingredients

that Indian food can just not do without.

It's also something that's very readily available

in the Indian store.

I like making mine fresh, but ready-made store bought

ginger garlic paste is very much available.

Salt, you could definitely use a whisk,

you could use a spatula.

I just like getting a feel of the ingredients,

feeling how the marinade is feeling

in terms of how thick it is.

It's taught to us when we are cooking Indian food.

And it's just something that I have always

practiced when I'm cooking Indian food.

Drumsticks and thigh, on the bone, the bone in part,

a lot of flavor to the final curry.

They're super juicy. They stay succulent.

They don't overcook.

Chicken breast is not the most

ideal cut for breezing.

There is a very high possibility that it might overcook

and become dry and stringy.

That's not a characteristic I like in my chicken curry.

The whole point of making this marinade is

to add an extra layer of flavor and depth to the chicken.

Yogurt is acid,

so what's happening right now is the acid is denaturing

the protein, it's gonna tenderize the protein.

If I leave it on for too long,

it will make it extra rubbery.

You can leave this in the refrigerator covered for a maximum

of two hours if you know

when you're gonna make this chicken curry.

If you're making this on the fly, I would suggest

that you give it about 35 to 40 minutes.

Just let it sit in that marinade.

So chicken is looking great.

While this sits for the next 35 to 40 minutes,

I'm gonna start cooking off my masala.

[upbeat music]

So a masala in the glossary

of Indian cooking can mean a bunch of different things.

It could mean powdered spices.

It could mean a marinade

or a marination sauce that you make with yogurt.

In this case, the masala that I'm making

is literally chopped up onions

and chopped up tomatoes that I'm gonna cook for a while

with whole spices and powdered spices.

And that's gonna be the basis

of the body of a chicken curry.

I have a wide skillet, tall edges.

Turn on heat between medium and high.

Traditionally, I would make this in a pot called a Kadai,

a round bottom pan.

It's usually a cast iron Kadai,

that would just take the final taste of the dish

to a whole new level, but just a really nice stainless steel

heavy bottom pan also works great for this.

Now here's a trick that I like a lot

and I often share with everyone.

I'm not gonna wait for my key to melt

before I add the whole spices.

I'm gonna add them right now while the pan is still cold.

The cumin seeds, bay leaf, a stick of cinnamon,

which just has that very nice aroma and sweetness,

green cardamom, black cardamom, very different aroma

and flavor compared to green cardamon.

And I'm gonna go in with my cloves.

As the fad gradually heats up,

spices also gradually releasing their flavors

and slowly infusing themselves in the ghee.

This is something that often people get very wrong.

They'll get the pan ripping hot,

and then they'll just add all the spices

and in the next 10 seconds,

they'll go in with the next ingredient.

There's no point in rushing this.

Indian food is a lot about patience.

So the reason why I'm not dry roasting the spices

is because this key or this fat,

is also gonna be the fat in which I saute

my onions and my tomatoes further.

This is literally the fat or the shortening

I need to make my base for the chicken curry.

So while this continues to toast,

I can see that's happening.

I can see the spices are slowly

and steadily releasing their flavor.

I can see the ghee is starting to smoke a little bit

and I'm very happy with the way this is looking.

I'm gonna go in with my finely chopped onions.

This is the most important step

about making this chicken curry.

You really need to cook those onions out.

Get a good caramelization.

If you don't get color and flavor here, your chicken curry,

the end product is not gonna have the color that you want.

The caramelization is only gonna happen inside the onions

when the onions are devoid

of all the moisture that is inside them.

Leave it on a high flame and keep stirring.

This is not something that you wanna set it and forget it.

Seven to eight minutes.

I feel the smell of onions sauteing in ghee

is one of my most nostalgic childhood aromas.

I see that my onions are getting a really nice golden brown

color and I'm happy with the way that's looking.

My next set of aromats,

finally chopped ginger and green chilies.

A great way to build more flavor into the final curry.

This is gonna be spicy, it's gonna add heat.

I want to have a very balanced but a very complex curry.

It smells so good and it might feel like it's burning,

must have control on it.

If you feel it's too much, get it off the heat.

I can smell and tell that the rawness from the green chilies

and the ginger is out.

It's time for me to add my powdered spices to this mix.

Kashmir red chili, gonna add color

and it's gonna add spice cumin powder.

Add a little bit of water just to get everything

that's stuck off, off from the pan.

[food sizzling]

And what this does,

it essentially stops the spices from burning

and overtoasting.

More surface area allows the onions

and the spices and the ghee

to cook much faster, much more uniformly.

The ghee's taken the color from the red chili powder

and the coriander.

It slowly is releasing itself,

which is a great way to tell

that your spices are finished toasting,

and that's exactly what you want.

This is a one part meal.

You're literally building flavor step by step.

So everything that's stuck to the bottom

of the pan is eventually gonna lend

its flavor to the ultimate and to the final curry.

I'm gonna go in with my tomatoes next.

The acid in the tomatoes is gonna help deglaze the span.

In about 30 seconds, the span is gonna come off clean.

Tomatoes are gonna pick up all that delicious fawn

and bring it back into the sauce.

We just have to keep cooking it at a high heat

five to seven minutes.

Once this cooks for long enough,

tomatoes will literally turn into pulp

and you won't be able to tell the tomatoes from the onions.

And that's the tell sign to know that you're ready

for your next step, which is adding the chicken.

[upbeat music]

I literally wanna put the chicken in, saute the chicken

with the marinade on it into that masala that I'm building.

What I'm looking for right now is for the yogurt

that's on the chicken to kind of break down

and for the chicken to get a really nice sear.

Again the yogurt has acid.

The acid is again gonna help deglaze the pan.

When the sauce is done, you'll see

that the curry has a really nice dark brown color,

and that's because of all the fawn that's stuck to the base.

Keeps getting lifted and keeps getting put back

into the sauce, which is phenomenal.

I like how the chicken's looking right now.

The same bowl in which I marinate the chicken,

it's gonna get all that marinate back in with my water.

I don't wanna waste any of this marination.

It's delicious.

Just look at that color, just look at that color.

Just all I have to do is just literally put some salt,

put a lid on, and I'm gonna let this cook for the next

15 to 20 minutes, and that's gonna give enough time

for the bones to release all their flavor into that gravy

for the chicken to cook.

It smells divine.

I'm finally going to lift the lid up

and see how the final product is looking.

That looks insane. Like genuinely, that looks insane.

The fat, the key is all surfaced back to the top.

That is what they call thari.

That's a fantastic way of telling

that your chicken is really up to the mark.

And that's how I want my chicken curry to look each time.

But we're not completely done yet.

I have a housemade garam masala,

which is an absolute crucial part

of finishing this chicken curry.

Everyone has a different version

or a different recipe for garam masala.

This is my garam masala recipe.

A good 15 whole spices including roast petals that go

inside it to just make it very fragrant and very aromatic.

Small little pinch of it right into the whole chicken.

I'm gonna lift up the flavor

of the chicken curry like suddenly you're gonna get this

intense hit of spices that have been toasted,

and we always use garam masala as a finishing spice

'cause all the spices in a garam masala have already been

toasted, obviously can be bought.

You don't have to make your own garam masala.

For me, a housemade garam masala always wins

over stove bought ones.

I do have some dried fenugreek leaves.

Green Indian leafy vegetable that's very indigenous

to India, adds a lot of depth

and bitter umami to the final product.

This probably right now is a very rustic chicken curry

that you would get at a daba or a shack on the freeway.

Adding the cream is just my personal touch

to make it a little rich and a little velvety.

Again, like I said, a chicken curry

differs from home to home.

This is just my little touch that I like to add

to make the chicken curry a little more rich.

Salt, I'm gonna squeeze the lemon in right at the end.

And just like all good things in Indian cooking,

I have to finish this off with coriander,

fresh ginger juliennes just add a sense of heat at the back

of your throat when you're eating this chicken curry.

Also great texture. So our chicken curry is all cooked.

It's not time to plate.

When I'm having a chicken curry, which is so simple,

I don't want much with it.

So I have some plain Jira rice

or Jira pula out just made with some aged Basmati rice,

a very generous helping of my sauce.

It's just the perfect viscosity. I like to do half and half.

Then I like to mix it up and eat all of it.

I'm gonna be unapologetic about this and very shameless.

I'm gonna eat it exactly how I eat it at home.

I'm gonna go in with my hands.

It's really hot, but that's what makes it also really fun.

I'm gonna mix it in with the rice.

I'm gonna shred a little bit of that chicken.

I'm gonna mix it all up, make like a really nice

bite in my hands.

I use my four fingers

and then I use my thumb to push it in my mouth.

[gentle music]

[table thumps]

That makes me very happy.

It's everything I want in a chicken curry.

It's so balanced, the spice, the seasoning, the acidity,

the richness of the sauce, the way it compliments

with the rice, the way the chickens cook, it's really juicy.

It's falling off the bone.

This is genuinely the tell sign of

what a good chicken curry is supposed to be like,

what it's supposed to taste like.

The best part about this dish

is it's a completely one pot wonder.

I don't have to do different pots.

I don't have to do different pans.

Everything was built and finished in the same pot.

Very low effort, but create high reward.

When I taste this, it immediately brings me back

to my childhood because this is exactly the kind

of chicken curry I grew up eating.

Still hits the spot each time.

[gentle music]